Уолтер Тевис - The Hustler

He went over and took a seat near the jockeys, who were now being addressed by a thin man in a blue flannel jacket, whom Eddie did not recognize.

“Ignorance,” the man was saying. “It’s ignorance.” Eddie did not attempt to follow the conversation, but it seemed that the man was trying to explain that atmospheric pressure was what kept pool balls on a pool table—without atmospheric pressure they would all fly off into space—and that, moreover, this phenomenon had a great deal to do with keeping horses on race tracks. The jockeys seemed skeptical, a feeling which Eddie shared.

After a while Bert returned and said, “Nobody’s seen Findlay for a couple of days.”

“Oh?”

“He might be at the races. You want to go out?”

“You’re the boss.”

“That’s right,” Bert said. “I’m the boss.”

He had never been to a race track before—although, of course, he had bet the horses experimentally a few times—and at first it was quite interesting and exciting. There was the crowd, and the little windows, and the smell of horses, of women, and of money—most of all the money, which seemed to have a clean, outdoor smell to it, like a crap game in an open field.

But after the fifth race his feet were tired from the standing and he had become bored. He went into the bar, which was very horsy-looking and very crowded, and sat down. It was ten minutes before a waitress came, and during this time he looked at the people who filled the bar, most of them expensively, sportily dressed, and wondered where in hell they all came from and why, exactly, they were having such a good time. He could not fathom it. Gambling was something he felt that he understood, but to him gambling was betting on his own skill, or at least on an act in which he was personally involved, even matching quarters for drinks. This business of betting into rigged odds on somebody else’s horse, which probably looked and behaved like any other horse anywhere, seemed to be a high kind of folly—or at least a simple amusement. But probably some people won at it, besides the track and the bookies. He had known a man who claimed to make a living betting horses. It did not seem to Eddie to be a decent way to make a living, even if the profits were high.

He amused himself for a while by trying to separate the people in the bar into two groups—the real and the phony rich. And there seemed to be a middle group: “Chamber of Commerce” or something, half real and half phony. You could tell by the clothes they wore. The rich ones usually wore ugly or grotesque clothes; the phonies were flashy, too stylish, and the Chamber of Commerce dressed very much the way Eddie did himself. The clothes of very rich people seemed to be almost invariably ugly, in the way that hand-painted ties are always uglier than factory-made ones, especially when worn with a pearl gray suit with whip stitching and a white-on-white shirt. And then there were the tweedy ones, but only a few. Almost all the women looked good, even the middle-aged women. Many of these were of the tightly packed, manicured, and overdressed sort whom Eddie had always found perversely attractive, but about whom he knew nothing, except that they liked to display it in public places, such as race tracks. For a moment he thought of Sarah’s small breasts under her blouse, and he wondered what she would look like when she was forty. Probably tweedy and fat in the ass. Probably still living in an apartment and writing books. Maybe she would write one about him. A thin book, or a poem. Probably make her feel important, unusual, to be broad-assed and married to a college professor and to tell her friends about the pool hustler, the criminal, she had shacked up with once. But maybe that wasn’t right. He did not have her figured out that well.

A waitress finally discovered him. He asked for a double Scotch, and watched her legs as she waded her way back to the bar. Standing at the bar was an interesting-looking man and Eddie shifted his attention to him while the waitress gave the bartender his order.

The man was tall and slim, with the kind of pale, debauched and oddly youthful face that some men of forty or more have. He was obviously rich and possibly a fairy, or maybe that was only the youthful, sensual look, for he did not seem effeminate. He was wearing a dark suit—Eddie could tell by the way it held to his narrow shoulders that it was very expensive—and dangling from his free hand was a very fine and expensive-looking camera. He was talking to a loudly rich type with binoculars, and both of them were laughing, only there was nothing humorous in the young-looking man’s laugh.

The waitress returned eventually with Eddie’s drink. It cost a dollar and a half, and she tried to hustle him out of a fifty-cent tip by fumbling the change and looking harried. He stoned her out on that one, however, waiting for his money.

She had just left when a bell rang loudly, signifying the end to betting for that race, and most of the people began to leave the bar or crowd to the windows, watching the track. But the man with the camera stayed at the bar, hardly aware, apparently, of the race that was starting.

Eddie listened for the sound of the bugle, then the noise of the horses running, which came a minute later, and with it the shouting and a few frenzied screams, the half-hourly orgasm. Then he finished his drink.

Bert came in, found him, and sat down.

Eddie stretched, and lit a cigarette. “How’s it going?”

“Fair.”

“You win on that one?”

“Yes.”

Eddie shook his head. “You always win, don’t you?”

Bert looked thoughtful. “As a general rule, yes.” He glanced toward the bar. Immediately his eyebrows rose. “Well,” he said, softly, “look who’s coming!”

It was the thin man whom Eddie had been watching. He walked up to their table and sat down, lazily. Then he smiled at Bert. “Well, hello,” he said, his voice soft, unctuous. “Haven’t seen you in a long time.”

“Hello,” Bert said, pursing his lips in a faint smile. “I haven’t been around here for a long time.” And then, “I’d like you to meet Eddie Felson. James Findlay.”

Eddie kept his face from showing anything. “Glad to meet you,” he said.

“And I you.” He set his camera on the table, and said, “I think I’ve heard about you, Mr. Felson. You play pocket billiards, don’t you?”

Eddie grinned. “That’s right,” he said. “Here and there. Do you?”

“A little.” He laughed. “Although I’m afraid I generally lose.”

“So does Eddie,” Bert said.

“Oh, I win sometimes,” Eddie said, looking at Findlay. He noticed that the youthful look he had seen in the man’s face was like a mask, or like the face of a middle-aged woman who is wearing too much make-up, as if something were holding the skin taut, preventing it from collapse, or from decay.

There was something supercilious, smug, in Findlay’s voice, and in his almost blank, pale eyes. “I’ll bet you do, Mr. Felson. I’ll bet you do.”

Eddie remained grinning. “How much?”

Findlay’s eyebrows rose in mock astonishment. He turned to Bert. “Bert,” he said, “I believe Mr. Felson is making a… proposition.”

“That could be,” Bert said.

Findlay looked back at him and smiled, and for a moment Eddie was amused at the situation—for it was obvious that Findlay knew the purpose of this visit, that Bert and Eddie would not be talking with him if there was not a hustle being planned. Findlay was playing it all out, and it occurred to Eddie that the man was an instinctive phony, a ham. “Well, Mr. Felson,” he was saying, “maybe you would like to come out to my place some evening. We could play a few games of billiards.”